Seven Billion Lives And Only One Reason
by TaraGeek
Summary: An AU story. After the events at Yellowstone Myka hasn't returned to the warehouse and the Regents have done somthing unexpected with Helena. She's spent months, hiding in her parents book store and while Myka Bering is perfectly happy that cataloguing and inventory are a part of her life no matter what, the future is a question that remains very difficult to find an answer for.
1. Chapter 1

It had taken Myka a while to settle back in to Colorado Springs, to her parents book shop. She figured it would take her even longer to get comfortable after everything that had happened. Her mom and dad obviously knew that something was wrong but they'd quickly given up on their attempts to pry details out of her. They were trusting their stoic daughter to know her own mind and hoping that eventually she would trust them with it. All she'd told them was that something had happened, it was her fault and that afterward she

couldn't let herself continue with her job like before.

The understanding that recent years and their events had fostered with her father had made it easier to actually come home. For the first time in her life she _knew_ that her parents were proud of her regardless of her achievements. She didn't have to prove herself anymore, not to them at least but after what happened she had an awful lot to prove to herself.

The world had almost ended, _literally _and it was her fault. It was her fault for trusting Helena, for letting her in and being so blinded by what she was feeling for the strange woman from a hundred years ago that she hadn't seen how twisted the darkness buried in side H.G Wells was. She'd fallen in love and it had almost cost the world, whatever Helena felt for her in return just might have saved the world too but that wasn't enough for Myka.

Life had become quieter than it had been since she was a child. Despite life's pace and despite Pete's repeated attempts to drag her back into the world of the Warehouse she fell into a routine. Cataloguing and inventory were in her destiny no matter what and that was comforting. It was almost like she could hold the world at bay, locking out what had happened, how much it hurt, what and who she'd lost. Fate however seemed to have ideas to the contrary.

On a quiet Tuesday afternoon she was alone in the musty leather bound isles of Bering and Sons bookstore when the world snapped back into her life. It returned in the form of Mrs Frederick. The mysterious woman who'd first recruited her to Warehouse 13 appeared as inexplicably and as suddenly as she always had.

"Mrs Frederick!" Myka managed to sputter out in surprise.

The shock almost costing her sure footing she brought a steadying hand to her chest and took a breath, bracing her free hand against a shelf for support.

"I'd almost forgotten about that!"

As impassive and straight forward as ever, Mrs Frederick simply began to speak.

"You haven't forgiven yourself Myka." She offered.

Unable to find a response Myka simply furrowed her brow and held her ground against this invasion into her refuge. If Mrs Frederick noticed her discomfort and Myka was fairy sure she actually did, she didn't acknowledge it. Instead she just carried on talking.

"You should." She clarified.

"You're punishing yourself harder than almost anyone and you need stop."

Confronted so suddenly and so inescapably with what she'd been hiding from Myka moved to the offence, even beginning to raise her voice to her mysterious visitor.

"How can I !?" She protested.

"The world almost ended because I couldn't see past my own feelings!"

Mrs Frederick wasn't swayed by the outburst, she countered it with characteristic calmness and certainty.

"And it survived for the same reason, because of the bond that the two of you share." She clarified.

"In the end H.G. Wells couldn't finish what she started because she couldn't bring herself to kill YOU."

Myka shook her head unable to listen, it wasn't as if the thought hadn't been through her mind a thousand times. It wasn't as if something like it hadn't been repeated over the phone in one form or another just as frequently by Pete but she couldn't listen. Turning her back to Mrs Frederick for defence and for emphasis she spoke.

"If you're trying to get me to come back to the warehouse, it's not going to work."

There were times when all Myka wanted WAS to go back, she couldn't do it though. If she couldn't and wouldn't for Pete then she wouldn't for Mrs Frederick either.

She expected, she hoped for that to be that and for the turn of her back to signal Mrs Frederick's departure. Instead she was surprised to feel a hand on her shoulder and a voice that didn't correct but instead only comforted.

"That's not what I'm here for." The older woman offered.

With a grudging resistance Myka turned around to face her. Mrs Frederick held her in place gently with a hand on each shoulder.

"I'm only here to say this Myka. Forgive yourself."

What she said next was genuinely the last thing that Myka ever expected to hear. It was the last thing that made any sense and she had to pause to make sure that she'd actually heard it correctly.

Calm and assured Mrs Frederick continued, a crease of expression, almost of effort finding it's way onto her face as she spoke.

"If we can forgive _her_, then you can certainly forgive yourself wouldn't you say?"


	2. Chapter 2

When Helena G Wells lost her daughter Christina to violence it was more than she could take. The woman who had mastered so many things, who's mind was filled with ancient secrets and far flung dreams brought to reality could not conceive of a world in which she couldn't save her own child. Yet that's how it happened. H.G. Wells grappled so hard and so uncompromisingly to save her daughter, even in the face of impossibility and when in the end it finally proved beyond her reach, all she was left with was hate. A hate that festered and grew through a hundred years of confinement in bronze.

Freed in 2010, even a warehouse agent for the second time, there was only one thing left to her. The destruction of the cruel, unforgiveable world that had taken so much. What remained of the brilliant woman who had fallen so far couldn't compete with finally, mercifully ending the world.

Except, in the end the world _hadn't_ ended.

Still reeling from the confrontation at Yellowstone, still reeling because of the Minoan trident and a trigger that hadn't't been pulled. Myka Bering found herself confronted by the fact that the higher authorities that governed warehouse 13 were willing and able to understand, to forgive Helena. She found herself at a loss for how to feel about the woman she'd fallen in love with and her own culpability in what had happened.

Mrs Frederick came and went with her news and in the coming weeks life continued with a rhythm that was increasingly difficult to live with. It was clear from her continued contact with Pete that her former colleagues at the warehouse had no knowledge of the "forgiving" of H.G Wells. At the very least Pete wouldn't say anything if they did. Myka could barely let herself settle at the thought of Helena and what the regents had done with her. The idea that she was living, perhaps free somewhere played at her mind. So did the question of forgiveness.

Life remained uncertain. The career that she had worked so hard and so long for was gone and she could barely see what her life should become if she never returned to the warehouse. Her parents book shop was home but it couldn't be all that the the future held. If she wasn't going to wither away, and she was determined not to do that, then the future was a question she had to work out how to answer.

The answer came as the news of Helena's forgiving had before it, on a perfectly ordinary day at Bering and Sons. It was a Saturday and her mother was quietly minding the store front as Myka checked her way through new stock. Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, D. H Lawrence and others were unpacked, a life's collection of books made their way onto the shelves ready to find new homes. Myka held her breath as she's taken to on such occasions, preparing her composure, her readiness for the appearance of initials that meant so much more than they used to. Readying herself for very particular titles, "The Time Machine","The Island of Dr. Moreau", "The War of the Worlds". Appear they inevitably did and she couldn't help but pause, running a thumb over the authors embossed name on an old hardback copy of "The First Men in the Moon".

Lost in thought she was shocked back to reality by long pale fingers that joined her in brushing against the cover and a familiar voice that the book's presence had this time prophetically ordained.

"I'm glad to see that my brother actually got this one published after I was bronzed! I suppose I should read it. I gather he even managed a few without me!"

Myka looked up to see a face that she knew so well. A face that could dart from sarcasm, from wit, to earnest concentration so seamlessly. Eyes that sparkled with life but this time filled with apprehension.

For a brief moment they stood, silently taking each other in, both women barely able to speak, until finally Helena did.

"Hello Myka." She offered carefully.

Myka was in a daze, the world of her parents store only a few feet away. It was a world of customers and shelves and her mother that might as well have _been_ separate by 200,000 miles. She'd spent months going over and over what had happened but until that moment she'd been genuinely unable to process events or her feelings about them. She'd hidden from the world because she couldn't trust herself or her judgement but with Helena standing right there it became clear. What happened hadn't gone away, nothing _could_ undo it but Myka was suddenly sure of her feelings.

Abandoning the book _and_ caution she sped around the counter. Her heart was beating faster but her mind was calmer than it had been in a very long time. Spreading her arms wide she threw them around the woman before her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

"You're here!" She exclaimed, the release of breath taking away months of tension.

Drawing back, almost in shock at the sudden and _certain_ affection, Helena took a moment to respond. With Myka's arms still tight around her she slowly raised her own to return the embrace. Gripping tighter for a moment she drew back again. Piercing Myka with eyes that could see her like nobody else, she spoke.

"I'm sorry." Was all she said. Her voice was steady but barely more than a whisper.

Cupping Helena's face in her hands, Myka brushed away the first few tears tentatively rolling down the other woman's cheek, the reality of what happened finally hitting her. It had been Helena's plan to ignite the Yellowstone caldera and she could have done it, in the end there was no way that they could have stopped her. In practical reality however, she _didn't_ do it, _she_ stopped, _she_ let billions of people live. Billions of people, plus one.

"_Hey_." Myka assured, willing the releaf, the happiness that she could finally let herself feel toward Helana, to be shared.

"You're here!" She smiled, her grin growing broader.

"We're BOTH here. Everyone's still here!"

Leaning forward she pressed a gentle kiss to Helena's forehead, brushing errant strands of hair from her face before speaking again, this time more slowly.

"It's okay."

Her arms tightly clasped around Myka's waist, Helena Wells raised her head to the ceiling and let out a laugh. Releasing pain that had been held for over a hundred years.

She lowered her gaze, smiling and brushed a hand against Myka's cheek before speaking.

"I smell apples." Was all she said.

The two women simply stood, their foreheads touching, blissfully unaware of their surroundings until a careful voice broke the silence.

"um, Myka? Wouldn't you like to introduce me to your friend?" Mrs Bering stepped forward, her head tentatively tipped to one side.

Myka laughed and nodded.

"Yeah.."

Taking Helena's hand she raised it to her lips to kiss before turning to speak to her mother.

"Mom," she began before briefly turning with a broad smile back to the woman who's hand she was holding.

"I'd like you to meet Helena."


End file.
